As Alfred Hitchcock liked to say, "It's only a movie."

Try telling that to Christians organizing protests, prayer vigils, bans, boycotts and hunger strikes over "The Da Vinci Code." Or to albinos who feel wronged by a character, a murderous monk, or even to fans of the Dan Brown best-seller who imagined it ... differently.

		'The DaVinci Code' Rating: PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, some nudity, thematic material, brief drug references and sexual content. Starring: Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou. Director: Ron Howard. Post-Gazette Family Film Guide review of "The DaVinci Code" "The DaVinci Code" Web site Related articles: McKellen finds himself in an envious position Church offers free tickets to 'DaVinci Code' at Cranberry theater tonight

The novelist, after all, described religious symbologist Robert Langdon as "Harrison Ford in Harris tweeds" rather than Tom Hanks in long hair. But Hanks is the star of director Ron Howard's adaptation which, frankly, shouldn't move anyone to a hunger strike. Or even a 24-hour fast.

And do we really expect the world to get its religious education from a thriller based on a work of fiction?

Despite its juicy theme about "the greatest cover-up in human history," the movie is oddly flat, plodding and not as involving as you would expect for a film based on a page-turner with breathless little chapters. A story such as this should crackle with energy and intrigue but it doesn't, except for supporting actor Ian McKellen.

It's impossible to write about this movie without giving away its central premise, so brace for a spoiler (although not the twists in the final third of the picture).

The movie opens with the murder of the revered curator of the Louvre in Paris. He had been scheduled to meet with visiting American Langdon (Hanks), who is suspected in the death and drawn into a shadowy world where people believe that Jesus Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and that their bloodline survives to this day.

The murder and an elaborate, encoded message sent from beyond the grave -- via the position of the naked corpse, a bloody symbol and luminescent writing -- touch off a tornado of violence, global chase scenes, intellectual arguments and the revelation of closely guarded secrets.

Caught in this swirl are Langdon along with French police cryptologist Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), who happens to be the estranged granddaughter of the dead curator; a wealthy Holy Grail expert, Sir Leigh Teabing (McKellen), living on a 185-acre estate outside Paris; a French lawman, Bezu Fache (Jean Reno); Bishop Aringarosa (Alfred Molina), the president-general of the Catholic group Opus Dei; and one of his especially devoted followers, an albino monk named Silas (Paul Bettany), who lashes his own back and wears a cilice, or spiked chain, around his thigh.

At stake is not just who is behind a series of murders but whether everything we believe about Christianity is a fraud. As Teabing asks, "What if the world discovers the greatest story ever told is a lie?"

In a way, "Da Vinci Code" is in a lose-lose position.

Go in without having read the book and you may feel slightly lost as it condenses and then tosses out a lot of information (Priory of Scion, Knights Templar, Opus Dei) that is more leisurely advanced in the text.

Go in having read the book and you will know the central premise along with the identity of the puppet-master and whether the bloodline continues. The movie, written by Akiva Goldsman ("Cinderella Man," "A Beautiful Mind"), tweaks the novel's ending and seems to try to strike a conciliatory tone with some dialogue that puts Hanks' character in the position of playing devil's advocate, so to speak.

Hanks, as always, is likable while Tautou, luminous in the French charmer "Amelie," is reduced to dour stand-in for the audience, asking the questions which advance or explain the story. Molina doesn't have much screen time but Bettany certainly makes an impression, with his white blond hair, red-rimmed eyes, naked scenes of self-flagellation (filmed from the back) and history of violence. It's McKellen, however, who delivers the best performance of the film.

"Da Vinci" is beautifully shot, makes great use of authentic European backdrops and employs some special-effects tricks to meld the past and present, as when Hanks and Tautou appear to walk through an 18th-century funeral. In another scene, the camera seems to take us inside a locked cylinder called a cryptex, where a vial of vinegar can destroy the papyrus concealed inside.

I don't buy the novel's premise (mainly malarkey), but for a movie that clocks in at roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes, "Da Vinci Code" still feels like the Cliffs Note version. In the end, it's an average movie, not a Christian call to arms.

So dark the con of man, indeed.